


don't love someone to save yourself

by altschmerzes



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Days, Families of Choice, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, angus has a Bad DayTM and taako has more feelings than he'll cop to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 18:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11214228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altschmerzes/pseuds/altschmerzes
Summary: Angus McDonald has a bad day, Taako tries his hand at taking care of someone, and things are different than they were before but maybe that's for the best.





	don't love someone to save yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitahart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitahart/gifts).



> a very happy birthday to a very dear friend of mine who is the reason i've listened to this podcast to begin with. 
> 
> let me know what you think and, emma, i hope you enjoy this!

 

> _Don’t love someone to save yourself. Love someone to destroy who you used to be. (Burn it down.) - A Softer World, E. Horne & J. Comeau _

The thing is, when you get to a certain point during days like this, you sort of forget how they started. Angus McDonald can’t pinpoint the exact event that began the spiral of his Tuesday, but in a frustrating and in hindsight embarrassing twist of fate, the inability to remember the genesis is what forms the culmination of it. He is sitting on the floor in the library, arms crossed over his chest and what he promises to himself up down and sideways isn’t a pout on his crinkled up face, when Taako walks in and flops down next to him.

“We were supposed to have our lesson twenty minutes ago, what gives?” he asks. Then he actually processes the situation. “Okay, record scratch, backing up, trying again. What’s got you down, lookin’ pretty awful over here.”

Angus opens his mouth then clicks it shut again, frowning deeper. It’s not like he can exactly say, ‘oh hey Taako, I can’t remember what the first pebble in this giant stack of bad experience pebbles making up this bad experience pebble pile of a day was and it’s super bumming me out that I can’t at least remember why I started getting so upset in the first place’. No way.

So, seeing as he can’t remember what’s wrong, and he can’t say that he can’t remember what’s wrong, Angus settles for a happily vague gesture that gives absolutely no real answers. He shrugs.

“Alright,” Taako says breezily, taking it in stride. “Did something happen?”

A shrug.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Shrug.

“Alright. Well.” Taako is, at this point, swiftly running out of options. He’s pretty new to this ‘attempting to be a responsible and reassuring presence to several individuals to which one is accountable’ thing, much as he would never over his stone cold corpse admit that was an amount of personal culpability and attachment he’d accepted as part of his lot in life now.

In the process of this new and _definitely_ unasked for and unwanted (shut up, Magnus) part of his reality, Angus has, surprisingly been one of the easiest parts to manage. For all that he is a kid, and that in itself conveys a kind of responsibility Taako did _so_ not ask for, he’s also straightforward in a way that makes doing right by him a little easier than some of the more standoffish assholes Taako’s been associating with these days. Kid says what he means and is generally pretty open about what’s bothering him at any given moment.

Easy to read though he generally is, however, today is not one of those days. Which leaves Taako in a bit of a corner that he supposes he has painted his own damn self into, what with this whole ‘you marched your own ass in here and sat down and asked the kid what was wrong like some dumbass who cares about people or whatever’ thing. In any case, never let it be said that Taako half-asses things once he’s decided to do them, which means now it’s time to figure out what to do about the upset child next to him, sans information on what’s actually upsetting him.

Can’t fight what you’re unaware of the identity and nature of, so. Plan B. And seeing as the only ‘how to handle people having a hard time in a way that won’t end with the situation worse rather than better’ frame of reference Taako has is Magnus ‘yes but what if we tried _hugging_ the bugbear’ Burnsides…

“Want a hug?” asks Taako.

Angus still doesn’t answer, but does respond with something other than a shrug. He slumps bonelessly over against Taako’s side, face half mashed into the side of the elf’s sweater. Taako sighs, which ends up coming out more tired than put-upon, and shifts his arm around Angus’s shoulders. He frowns, noting how the kid is shaking, trembling with larger hitches jerking his back every so often like he might be crying.

 _Well, shit. Shit, dammit, why_. Taako gives himself a solid fifteen seconds to cycle through the five stages of ‘I guess I live here on this floor now’, then resigns himself to his present reality and focuses on the most immediate problem.

“Alright, short stack,” Taako murmurs, raising his hand from Angus’s shoulder and patting his head lightly. Somehow this was not exactly how he’d imagined his day going. “Feel like telling me what’s wrong yet?” Angus gives a big heavy sigh - heavier, Taako thinks, than a ten year old should probably be sighing, not that he’d really know - and then says something totally ridiculous.

“I’m a bad wizard.”

“You’re gonna have to run that one by me again because you’re making a whole lot of, uh, no sense at all. Like none. Talking zip sense, here, little dude.”

Angus shifts a little, slumping further over, legs flung out in front of him despondently.

“I was having a _very_ bad day,” he says, starting slow but speeding up as he continues speaking. “And I couldn’t remember what _started it_ but I _remembered_ and it’s that I was going to practice before our lesson today so I got up extra early and I was all ready and I couldn’t _do it_ . I was just trying to do Prestidigitation which I _know_ how to do, it’s a _cantrip_ , and I tried it over and over but I kept messing it up and I’m a bad wizard, and I know that one already and I should be able to do it it’s _easy_ and-”

“Hey, hey, stop.” Taako gave Angus a little squeeze, both to get his attention and to calm him down. It works, to an extent, Angus releasing a breathy, hitching sigh, only barely this side of a sob, but at least not slipping back into his upset rambling. “First off, it is too early in the morning to understand that many words that fast so just. Chill a little bit, my guy, we can figure it out.” It’s three forty eight in the afternoon but nobody really needs to bring that up at the moment. “Second - and I don’t say this often so count yourself pretty blessed - you’re a good wizard, Ango. Everybody has days where their shit just doesn’t jive the way it does normally, and yeah, it wicked sucks, but it doesn’t mean you’re a bad wizard. Just means, like you said, you had a bad day.”

A lot of things are suddenly running through Taako’s mind uninvited, things he far from wants to think about right now, or ever. He shifts straighter against the wall, glancing down at Angus and adjusting himself so that his shoulder and arm, bracketing around the boy’s body, form a kind of barrier that could never hope to shield Angus from the kind of things biting at his consciousness right now, except in the kind of fantasy version of the way the world works that is the only way Taako can push his way through bad days.

So… _many_ bad days.

Shaking his head and suddenly feeling as inadequate as his ‘hug from an elf who is spectacularly bad at hand-to-hand combat’ method of shielding Angus from all that might seek to harm him, Taako clears his throat. He jostles Angus just a little, trying to lighten the mood and get his attention in one move.

“Hey,” he says, dropping a heavy note of conspiracy over his voice. Angus doesn’t verbally reply but does lift his head somewhat, peering up at Taako. “If you think a hug could make you feel better, I know a guy who gives the most top notch hugs around. Magnus Burnsides, may have heard of him, could put a teddy bear out of a job? I bet you I could go upstairs and find him right now and he’d be fuckin’ thrilled to come down here and give you the best hug you’ve ever had. Probably even sit and read you some of that book you like so much, about the kid detective, if you asked nice.”

There’s a moment of silence during which Angus looks back down, settling his cheek against the front of Taako’s jacket. “I’d rather stay here, thank you.” In Taako’s surprised silence, Angus elaborates. “You’re soft and you give good hugs. And you’re nice.”

“I am not _nice_ ,” Taako blusters, latching onto the one part of that he can give a good response to. “I will not stand for this maligning of my character, Ango, how dare you.” He supposes his hand, gently messing with the kid’s hair, kind of kneecaps his point here, but whatever. No witnesses no proof.

Angus just laughs a little, the happiest he’s sounded this entire encounter, and Taako goes through his second round of accepting the fact that he won’t be moving from this spot for the foreseeable future. He thinks about the bizarre reality he’s found himself in and almost laughs himself, given if you had, just a few short months previously, told him this is where he would be, Taako probably would have guffawed and then moonwalked out of the room with both middle fingers up. The person he was before the Bureau, before Magnus and Merle, before the Director, before Angus, that person…

Taako gives a tiny shake of his head, fingers still combing gently over Angus’s curls. Things are different now. He’s different. The person he was before all this is dead and gone and, finding that he doesn’t actually mind his present circumstances as much as he would definitely tell anyone who asked that he was, Taako smiles to himself. That person was kind of an asshole, anyway. Not too great a loss, given what he’s gained in the exchange.


End file.
